Arts Education

My students like a paper calendar. I use Google calendar and our class calendar is embedded on my website and on my Schoology page.  Every year I threaten to stop printing the paper version, but the students always ask me to do it, so then I do. This creates a bit of a hassle because Google Calendar doesn't print nicely, so I end up typing all the information into a calendar twice - once for Google, once to print. Yesterday I tried out Print My Cal . This service allows you to print a Google calendar with some limited format choices. In the very easy process, you sign in to Google and make a couple choices for your formatting. Then choose the calendar (or calendars) you want to print and download the file to print.  I have tried out a couple of different fonts and I haven't found exactly the right thing yet, but I think with this one I am on the right track. It's very plain and the formatting isn't perfect, but if it means I can stop typing the calendar twice, I am happ...

This week something exciting happened on A Lever and a Place to Stand ! During this past week, my blog has had more pageviews from readers in Russia than in the US. This week marks the first time that any country other than the US has been the top of the pageviews list. Welcome, Russia! I can't tell by looking at the analytics which post brought this increased international traffic, but I am so intrigued. If you are a Russian chemistry teacher or a Russian teacher of young children and you might consider partnering with me on a project this year, let me know by commenting below. I would love to connect with an international classroom!

Another new coding app entered the scene recently. This one is another app brought to us by GoldieBlox . If you aren't familiar with GoldieBlox, this is a line of toys worth checking out. Founder Debbie Sterling is an engineer who cashed in everything she had to start this line to encourage girls to make and build and engineer things. When she was just getting GoldieBlox off the ground, every time I watched her talk about the company, I teared up. This subject hits home with me, so we own many GoldieBlox sets and the Movie Machine app . Needless to say, I was very excited about the idea of a GoldieBlox app that teaches coding. Open the app and you have four options: play the coding adventures, go to the coding sandbox, play the mini-games, or watch Goldie videos. I went directly for the Goldie adventures. The premise of the game is goofy - someone is having a birthday but we don't know who so let's deliver cupcakes to everyone we know in town to cover all the bases.  I rec...

During an inservice this past year, I was introduced to a strategy called My Favorite No . We watched this video about the strategy and I really liked it (video AND strategy!). If you don't have time to watch the video right now, here is the gist: Give kids a quick bellwork assignment to complete on an index card. Collect and quickly sort into right and wrong answers. Then choose the best wrong answer and use a document camera to project it to the class. Ask the students to identify everything that is done well in the incorrect response. Then ask them to suggest a correction and identify why the teacher chose it as her favorite "no." I like how quick it is, how it emphasizes that everyone makes mistakes sometimes, how the class starts with what is good and corrects the mistake. I like that everyone gets better at editing his or her own work. Today I stumbled upon a way to do with without index cards or document cameras. One of my favorite web tools (and apps) is The A...

This week I have been reading with great interest a discussion in a  chemistry teachers' Google Group . It started with a post about whether or not teachers find it acceptable when students give answers as 3.6e-4 instead of 3.6 x 10 -4 . There were a couple of back and forth ideas about whether or not this is acceptable practice on its face value: Then the conversation  shifted away from that and to a more important idea: does writing an answer as 3.6e-4 tell a teacher something about a student's understanding of the math and/or the chemistry? This is where I was really drawn in. In my experience, students arrive to chemistry in tenth or eleventh grade with little understanding of scientific notation despite its inclusion in the 8th grade standards of the Common Core (emphasis mine): CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.8.EE.A.4 Perform operations with numbers expressed in scientific notation, including problems where both decimal and scientific notation are used . Use scientific notation an...

I have written twice before about how much I love the templates at flippity.net . In fact, the first blog post I ever wrote was about the cool flashcards you can make from a Google Sheet when you grab the template at flippity.net . Then last July I wrote again about how more templates have been added. Well, here it is July, so it must be time to write about the other great tools that are available. The template I am most excited about is the Random Name Picker . Though it sounds like it only does that, it actually is a random team maker too. You can choose from one name, a lineup of all names, or teams of up to 12 kids, or up to 12 teams. With a click of a button, they can be instantly scrambled. There is also a spelling list maker and a mad lib generator . Click on a student's name and you can see, practice, and test on spelling words. With the mad lib generator, you see a list like the one pictured and you fill in words. Then, presto! A mad lib! Another great template is the b...

The best part about leading PD is finding great new tools and ideas by sharing with other people. During the past two days I have taught a Google class at a local college. When introducing Chrome, I talked about extensions and then we all sifted through some extensions to find some that we might like. One that I found was Stencil . Stencil allows you to "create images faster and easier than ever before." I will have to agree with that claim because I created the image above in about 4 minutes. Given 5 minutes, I might have been able to match the reds better!  The process couldn't be easier. Select a background. There are almost 700,000 to choose from. Type some text. Or select a ready-made quote. Drag it to where you want it to be. Resize, change color - all with easy, intuitive clicks. Save the image, download it, share it on social media. Easy, easy, easy. The free account allows you to save 10 images every month. You have a selection of backgrounds and icons to use in...